Multifaceted approach could help end distracted driving

15 September 2023

Along with strengthening laws and beefing up enforcement, safety officials should concentrate on leveraging friendships and family ties to inspire change, making drivers more aware of how serious a threat distraction represents and offering solutions to the common barriers that prevent them from simply ignoring their phones, an IIHS survey of drivers suggests.

Workplace policies that discourage distracted driving can be part of the solution.

Police reports indicate that more than 3,000 people died in distraction-related crashes across the United States in 2020, accounting for 8 percent of all traffic-related fatalities. Because it’s difficult to determine if distraction contributed to a crash, that number is almost certainly an underestimate. As a member of the National Distracted Driving Coalition, IIHS commissioned a national survey designed to guide the coalition’s future educational campaigns as well as the efforts of other organizations.

Activities such as eating or putting on makeup can also increase the risk of a crash, but mobile phones are a particularly tempting distraction. Phone use is now so constant that around half of some 2,000 U.S. drivers surveyed by IIHS reported performing at least one device-based task on most or all drives over the past month. The problem of using apps enabled by smartphones is especially common among parents and drivers employed by app-based rideshare and delivery companies.